within water
by ephemeral fallacy
Summary: he reaches out to reach the surface, but only his fingers make it/ /diving deeper, he finds that the darkness is easier to fall into than to face the light-Shintaro centric


**a/n**: So…this is what's produced when pop-y, happy music mixes with crappy writing? A+ for effort, maybe. I don't own Shin-baby and Ayano, but I own his despair in this fic at least. I can settle with that. Enjoy.

**.**

**.**

The only thing that runs through his mind is that she's dead.

_She's dead, dead, she's dead?_ Shintaro doesn't know how to respond as he realizes the seat next to him will be empty, that she will never smile again, and that he will no longer have the reliable best friend that he had since what felt like_ forever. Dead? It can't be…_

"She has to be alive, right?" He throws his head back and laughs, a raspy cough coming not from his throat but from his heart. He believes it to all be a terrible lie, a prank from maybe her, to make him scared for once in his life. "Ayano, you're silly. Trying to prank me with such a terrible thing. I should tell you tomorrow that it worked."

With a relieved smile on his face, Shintaro stares at the impossibly large room he lives in, the computer sitting amidst empty cola bottles and wrappers of junk food. Slipping into his grey shirt and a comfortable pair of pants, the black-haired boy snuggles into his bed.

The ceiling is covered in moving shadows, but it doesn't faze him at all. He's lived with these shadows since day one; they've followed him everywhere and he thinks of them as maybe, pets, of some kind. They welcome him in their dark grasps. His eyes slowly close, ignoring the flashing of lights and the sudden darkness from the city.

Ayano is just a silly trickster, a prankster, _is it funny if I laughed at it? Or would you rather see me afraid_?

Before he blanks out, he realizes he spends a lot of free time on his computer. Maybe next time, he'll go out with Ayano instead of being cooped up inside..

The next day, she's not there. His fears are confirmed, because the whispers and the eyes. They don't stop looking at him. He wants out of this area, this confined little room where the desk next to him is empty and he feels so alone despite having everyone around him.

Shintaro's hands are shaking violently, his eyes are dilating, his breaths are coming fast and short. No one notices. _You would've noticed, right? Where are you? Ayano?_ His screams echo in his mind and no one hears.

He should be invisible. Shintaro should disappear like she did.

The bell hasn't rung, yet he's out the door, running for his life, _running from what?_, forgetting his bag and ignoring the surprised gasps and looks of classmates that he hasn't talked to since the beginning of the year.

"I knew he was a weird one."

"Always so silent."

"He would only talk to Ayano, right?"

"What a creep."

The comments slide past him like oil against water, but they embed themselves into his skin. _What do you want? What do they want? I don't understand anyone anymore! Did I ever? Ayano, come back to me, please…_

Resignation. Isolation. Despair. Mixing in his gut like a concoction of suicide.

He contemplates it, standing on the spot where she leapt off of. Shintaro wonders if he'll take it, the "easy" way out, as everyone labels it. He tries to think of what she was thinking of. _Did I see her cry? Did I ever reach out to her? Did I...use her?_

A little lake of tears from within him siphon out of his eyes, a little stream making its way across the canyons of his cheeks. The mouth of the river doesn't close, but it doesn't open all the way. Shintaro feels the liquid on his face and he makes no move to wipe it away.

_Do you see these tears? Will they disappear like you?_

"Who knows…"

He answers his own question as he realizes the sun burns his eyes the more he looks at it. He wants it gone, or _does he want himself gone?_ _For not realizing she was shouldering so much pain and hurt and burden?_

Shintaro wants it all gone.

But most of all, he wants his clenching heart to stop beating and become stone.

He won't come out to hang with Ayano. He won't come out for anyone.

_Today is the day when I will hide from the light and return to the darkness. Where I belong._


End file.
